vESPrino - (@Indiegogo) quickly pimp your Domoticz

[vlast3k]

Hi Guys,

You may be interested in this device: vESPrino
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/vesp ... x/10721175#/
Just launched the campaign. Have a have a look on the video
Perks start at 5-6 Eur

It is a small USB Powered device, that has Button and RGB Led. Via Serial Port you can configure it to connect to Domoticz and either trigger event with the button, or led the LED shine some color.
There is also a variety of sensors that can be easily plugged in - w/o wires- E.g. Gesture or RFID sensor. Or some display to which you can send messages from Domotica. Also there are the standard LUX and Temperature sensors, and few others.

The primary goal is for people to quickly jump into developing IOT apps, but i believe it has also potential for Home automation scenarios.
If there is interest from the community i would also add native support for Domoticz, so that only some general parameters like Host, device id will need to be entered, and all the rest is done by the firmware

Regards, Vladimir

[trixwood]

How many sensors can you add to one vesprino device? (Hope more then one)
Are you planning to add cases around the sensors? (I would not mind to pay 1 credit for enclosure).
Can I use my own sensors (same type) that I have lying around?
Can I add my own custom sensors? (with some coding?)
Like MQ2 Gas MQ3, ... MQ9 Gas or Moisture [https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13322]?

And if so (i have a lot of sensors lying around 60+ can you add an perk in the campaign like 10 vespo's for 75 euro (or whatever you feel like bulk price is).

Cuz I could sell (not literally of course) this to my parents... (atleast as the sensors have cases, i think raw circuit scare people ) anyway it looks like lego sensors for home. Very cool!

[vlast3k]

How many sensors can you add to one vesprino device? (Hope more then one)

Well, the ESP8266 has 1 Analog input and 4-5 free GPIOs, so you cannot be too creative:)
On the other hand most of the sensors that i have included communicate over I2C, so they all will be connected to just two GPIOs (and the Gesture sensor for example needs one additional GPIO). I plan to make also some extension board, where i could add some additional I2C ports for additional sensors. The problem with this is that they have different ordering of the pins, so perhaps - the additional ones will need to be connected with jumper wires.

Are you planning to add cases around the sensors? (I would not mind to pay 1 credit for enclosure).

Yes, this is may major idea For now i have this enclosure

In fact i use it for another device i make with a CO2 Sensor inside.
I also plan to make one with a hole and mounts for a 0.96" oled, and one for the 16x2 LCD display.
My idea for those is to use the Vesprino Bare, and then just connect the vesprino and sensor/display with some jumper wires inside the box. The vESPrino bare, will not have the headers and usb male soldered, but i will include male headers (also optionally soldered). It also comes w/o a box, and you can choose from the other boxes for e.g. 1 credit

Can I use my own sensors (same type) that I have lying around?

of course, if they are also the same breakout, you can directly plug them, if not you may need to wire them.

Can I add my own custom sensors? (with some coding?)
Like MQ2 Gas MQ3, ... MQ9 Gas or Moisture [https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13322]?
...
Cuz I could sell (not literally of course) this to my parents... (at least as the sensors have cases, i think raw circuit scare people ) anyway it looks like lego sensors for home. Very cool!

yeah, this was exactly my other goal to provide some platform with a base board and matching enclosures, so that people can use it for their own needs - in the same way as i use it for my devices (and also to leverage a bit the investment of time i anyway put for this ) ) Apart from this campaign, i will use the same board for all my future projects

And if so (i have a lot of sensors lying around 60+ can you add an perk in the campaign like 10 vespo's for 75 euro (or whatever you feel like bulk price is).

Well, maybe it was not quite obvious in the description (even if i spent few days inventing this idea with the credit )) ) that you just pledge for a certain amounts of Credits and then you spend them as you like. So e.g. if you want 10 vESPrinos or vESPrino bare + enclosure = 3 credits
= 30 + 1 credit for shipping = 31 credits
And i have a perk for 89 eur for 32 credits

[trixwood]

One big box. I thought like as with the dongle with case, the sensors themselves had cases. I imaged cases around the temperature sensor, oled/lcd screen,... that why I thought lego... or something like Google Project Ara: First Modular Smartphone (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEC6myN2mXg).

I already got 16 credits and early backer... can you get perks twice?

And you should add the enclosure to the perks calculator, it's missing!

[vlast3k]

One big box. I thought like as with the dongle with case, the sensors themselves had cases. I imaged cases around the temperature sensor, oled/lcd screen,... that why I thought lego... or something like Google Project Ara: First Modular Smartphone (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEC6myN2mXg).

ahh you mean to connect the dongles, interesting idea .. there was a similar project an year ago on Kickstarter - NodeUSB, though i am not quite sure what happened to it

In fact, i am anyway going to design an extension board, its worth nothing to add male and female headers on both sides, so that you can connect those boards! Great idea !
I can also make boxes around the extension board and in fact - pre-solder some of the sensors there ) nice

I already got 16 credits and early backer... can you get perks twice?
And you should add the enclosure to the perks calculator, it's missing!

yeah - on Indiegogo, compared to Kickstarter you can get perks multiple times or replace your perk. It is better to get a higher prices perk btw, as the price per credit decreases )

[trixwood]

From glancing at their page, it seems they are delivering. Could not find any domoticz support though. And i definitely do not get the transparent cases. I do not want to see hardware, I want to hide it. I would like to see beige like the the fibaro door sensor as case though, they blend in well.

Besides after zwave, rflink, mysensors, hue... with a buttload of sensors/lamps/switches. (you should see my floorplan it does not fit anymore... everything is hidden thou, only tv and 2x boxes are visible as fixed electronicz), 12 pi zero cams (you can hide them good) and backing you up bringing another interface in the mix. I think enough is enough.

I meant to buy only a powernode 6 to switch of hdd when not needed back in february... and I still got no powernode 6! they are unfindable!
(does anybody have a 2nd hands who wants to part with it?)

it got slightly out of hand...

Anyway, beige or off white, see middle sensor.

door_window11.png (42.27 KiB) Viewed 4424 times

or big picture: http://www.fibaro.com/sites/all/themes/ ... ndow11.png

It would be nice to pick those colors anyway for the big case, or the dongle. (picture above is nice pallet to have to hide sensors).


Now the big question is the power consumption. How long can I use it with like 2 AA batteries and like, say, temperature sensor.

[vlast3k]

yeah.. i will get different colors, it would be nice to have something to choose from.
This is where i get them: http://colorfabb.com/pla-pha
http://colorfabb.com/specials
but it doesn't look they have exactly this one - they have something like a greenish beige

as for batteries, this is a different story. Wifi consumes quite some power, so if you need to send each 3 minutes a reading, and sending takes 1 second
2 AAs would last for 6 months. Though in the local network, sending could be also for 0.5 seconds, so then it would be 1 year
if you put 2 Cs, then it would be 2 years

[Derik]

mm Looks great, only the Batterylife is with what sensor?
Look @ Mysensors, 1-2 months with a motion

[trixwood]

Which 3D printer do you use? I am interested in getting one, but total noob.

The problem with mysensors is that you have to google real hard to find the good stuff. Their forum is total design look-and-feel, no usability bad search . So if you find the right tweaks (code & hardware), it's do-able. Still after that it largely depends on which sensor and the quality of the battery.

[vlast3k]

mm Looks great, only the Batterylife is with what sensor?
Look @ Mysensors, 1-2 months with a motion

yeah... montion sensor is hard, as you need to constantly monitor it - unlike the temperature sensor
for motion sensors i plan another device, which will essentially have a low power Atmega 328p (arduino), and only on cerain trigger it will use Wifi to send something. eventualy this could be even something like a shield to the vESPrino that would control it. haven't had too much time though to think in detail for this

[vlast3k]

Which 3D printer do you use? I am interested in getting one, but total noob.

I use in fact a dutch one http://www.felixprinters.com/products/3 ... -1-diy-kit i believe nowadays there are decent printers for half of the price, but more than an year ago this was one of the best
just keep in mind that "3D Printer" is a marketing name. The real name is "Complex filament extruding prototyping machine". Plan at least 100 hours time before you start feeling a bit confident

The problem with mysensors is that you have to google real hard to find the good stuff. Their forum is total design look-and-feel, no usability bad search . So if you find the right tweaks (code & hardware), it's do-able. Still after that it largely depends on which sensor and the quality of the battery.

yeah.. when i was trying if all sensors that i offer work, i spent few hours for each of them, searching for drivers and in most of the cases tweaking them a bit

[trixwood]

I mailed them:

Hi Tristan,

Our Standard White PLA/PHA (http://colorfabb.com/standard-white) is closest to a off white / beige kind of white. Bluish White PLA/PHA is the really bright cold white, Standard white is a lot more ‘creamy’.

The white of our co-polyesters are generally bright and cold like the Bluish White in our PLA/PHA portfolio.

Best,
Gijs

Anyway it's difficult to see the right color on a screen. Think that's the same as you already using?

[vlast3k]

not really
I am using a different brand
but they do nit uave white anymore so I decided to switch to those

so I will order form this white

[georgesattali]

Very interesting project. Have you thought of adding IR emitter & receptor ?
That way, one could replace IR remote with domoticz, which is currently difficult to find.
Regards, GD

[vlast3k]

Very interesting project. Have you thought of adding IR emitter & receptor ?
That way, one could replace IR remote with domoticz, which is currently difficult to find.
Regards, GD

interesting, i didn't know this
browsing around i found different emitters like this one with 4 LEDS
http://www.emartee.com/product/42262/
or this one with a single LED
http://emartee.com/product/42200/

Which one do you think is more suitable, maybe the 4 led one ?
for the receiver it is perhaps harder to make a multidirectional receiver, and this is why they are only single ones

[trixwood]

Or the middle version.

http://nl.aliexpress.com/item/Free-Ship ... 59618.html

or a combined one:

http://www.dfrobot.com/index.php?route= ... uct_id=355

btw ywRobot vs wRobot

omni four you definitely want, fans, airco's, tv, stereo, lamps are not all in the same place.

with one direction, yeah maybe for battery powered.

I can only imagine exotic use cases for omni direction receiver. which can be solved by using more then one sensor and some logic to prevent 2 receives from both sensors at the same time (which probably the same signal).

[vlast3k]

great i will add as options the 4-way and 2-way, will update the campaign later
just have to see how to include them in the firmware

for battery powered operation, i am not sure how it will work. At the end the Wifi has to be active constantly, and it consumes 50-60ma, which means 2aa's will be enough for just 2 days.

[trixwood]

Yes ofcourse, how else would it receive a command it has to send with ir, if not active constant

[juankar]

Very interesting Project and pehap a solution for the problema of automatic lights/PIR sensors.
I've read this can detect sense of movement, so it could detect if a person go into or out from a room, so we could know how many persons are in the room and so keeps light on or heater or.... Am I right?

[trixwood]

And a flame sensor (with little case around the sensor), it's small enough to hide behind my (not build in) fridge and still point at my stove. That could be a neat safety feature next to the smoke sensor in the kitchen.